Tagged: Puzzle

The soundtrack of this game is nothing less then amazing (live orchestra) and worth pledging to it alone, you should really listen to the two released tracks (embalmed in this post) Out of the $10k they ask, $~3,500 already been pledged and with 25 more days to go – they will surly reach their goal and more.

Evilot is a Puzzle / Defense game, where you play as Count Dolfus, a retired evil overlord, that just wants to spend his last days in peace. The problem is that the small retirement fund you’ve managed to amass, over decades of evildoing, is too tempting a prize for the heroes and adventurers running through the Kingdom of Evilot, so you’ll have prepare your defenses to withstand their fierce attack.

Evilot will be released for PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and yes, OUYA! We were backers and pledged on OUYA since day one, to get our hands on one of the consoles and the corresponding SDK’s by December and thus to be able to release Evilot the very first day you get your hands on yours.

Unique and Engaging Gameplay.

On Evilot we developed a “combo mechanic”. For example, if you place 3 units on a row or column, those units get removed from the board and you get a higher level unit.

Level-Up Logic

So you have to choose between a wider defensive spread or a tough unit on one row. You’ll have to constantly evaluate your position, instead of the “place and forget” approach found on many other known titles.

This is also tied in with unit acquisition, bigger combos mean that you’ll get to place more units onto the board, as it is not based on collecting a resource and “buying” your units.

When the team was assembled to develop an indie title, each one of us knew it would mean making hard choices without the financial aid of a publisher, so we designed a game focusing on our top priority; Delivering engaging gameplay at the highest possible level of production values.

We’ve been doing that for almost a year, yet we want to make the game even better, and that’s why all the support we’ll receive goes right back into the game, to make it the best it can be. Your backing will let us extend the scope of the game so everyone will get more gameplay, more content and even higher production values.

Another important goal of this Kickstarter campaign is to raise enough funds to record it’s soundtrack with a live orchestra. Since we want to make the best possible game we can deliver, every extra dollar above our goal will go towards:

- More levels: for every 2,000 dollars above our goal, we’ll be able to add a level to the game. (We would be able to hire junior designers to fine tune each of those levels in order to make sure they are challenging yet fun!)

- Minigames: for every 10,000 dollars above our goal we’ll add a minigame mode (We would very much like to hear what you would like to have in the game).

- Antiheroes: if we raise 40,000 dollars above our goal our team will be able to add a whole new game mode (Or a spinoff game free for all backers), in this game mode you’ll be able to choose between different Antiheros besides Count Dolfus, to command your minions.

Miegakure is a platform game where you explore the fourth dimension to solve puzzles.
Our world is three-dimensional: width, depth, and height. But what if there was a fourth physical dimension that we cannot see, in addition to the other three?

This game is about exploring the consequences of being able to move in four spatial dimensions. It plays like a regular three-dimensional platformer, but at the press of a button one of the dimensions is exchanged with the fourth dimension, allowing for four-dimensional movement.

Think about a two-dimensional character living on a horizontal, flat two-dimensional plane. To this character, height would be a foreign concept. A number of actions we three-dimensional beings take for granted feel like absolute magic to this two-dimensional character.

For example, if there is a wall in the shape of a circle around an object in 2D, it is essentially closed-off, since to reach it one would have to leave the 2D plane. It is also impossible for an outsider to know what is inside.

But us 3D beings can see the object from above, and also simply lift it off the ground to move it outside, essentially teleporting it. Now by analogy a four-dimensional being could perform many similar miracles to us living in only three-dimensions. This game allows you to perform these “miracles.”

The game medium makes the mathematical concept of a fourth dimension easier to understand by allowing to experience it first-hand, using trial and error, as opposed to being told about it.

The game is currently in development and the goal is to release it in downloadable form for consoles and PC/Mac/Linux. There is no announced date and platform yet. There is no publicly released demo at this point. There will be one when the game is released though, so please be patient Thanks.

Zachtronics Industries develops unique puzzle games, some of them can be even run on GNU/Linux via browser (flash based), but SpaceChem is their first game to have a true GNU/Linux client.

About
Zachtronics Industries is back with an ambitious new design-based puzzle game. Take on the role of a Reactor Engineer working for SpaceChem, the leading chemical synthesizer for frontier colonies. Construct elaborate factories to transform raw materials into valuable chemical products! Streamline your designs to meet production quotas and survive encounters with the sinister threats that plague SpaceChem.

Seasons After Fall aka Seasons is a cute 2D platform/puzzle game made with the 3D program Blender.
The game is developed by 2 French people named William and Guillaume who formed an indie company named Swingswing Submarine and made a Cat their boss ;).

Seasons after Fall is a puzzle / platform 2D game in which the player, as a wild fox, travels across the countryside, through forests and rivers, taking advantage of the changing seasons.
The player can switch between seasons at any place, any time, and see how it dynamically affects the environment : freeze rivers in winter, grow trees in summer and disperse spores using the wind in autumn.
He can also interacts with other animals : they will help him explore more places and find secret ones thanks to their unique abilities.

VIENNA, Austria – August 6, 2010 – The award-winning puzzle platformer, And Yet It
Moves, was released for the Linux platform today. Indie studio Broken Rules brings the
award-winning downloadable PC and Mac game that will have players physically
rotating environments to overcome various obstacles and challenges to the Free
Operating System. The game won the 2007 Independent Games Festival Student
Showcase, was nominated for the 2007 EUROPRIX Top Talent Award and qualified as a
finalist during IndieCade 2008. Download the DRM-free game as RPM or Debian
package, or as a Tarball. The game will be on sale for $9.99.

And Yet It Moves is an award winning physics-based platform game where you run and
jump through a world made of paper. To aid in solving the twisted mind-bending levels,
you possess the unique ability to rotate the world at will! Walls become floors, slides
become platforms – but a harmless pile of rocks becomes a hazardous danger when
turned upside down! Explore beautifully crafted environments. Survive 17 challenging
levels full of strange creatures, traps and puzzles. Unlock bonus levels and competitive
game modes. Beat you friends’ time on the online leaderboards. Turn your world upside-
down with And Yet It Moves!

Key features of the game include:• Advanced Platforming – Players run, jump and must rotate the world to solve
puzzles.• A living world -Meet creatures such as bats, bees and monkeys. Discover how
they react to ever-changing gravity, and master all challenges. 17 levels set in 3
different environments bring to life a paper collage world created from colorful
shreds of cardboard.• Speed Run mode – You can compete against the clock or previously recorded
Ghost Runs on each level, with marathon runs throughout the entire environment.• Online high scores and shareable Ghost Runs – Go for the high score by
challenging your friends or complete strangers and polish your skills of rotation.• Buy once, use everywhere – Once the game was bought via the Broken Rules
web shop, you can download the DRM-free software for all platforms (PC, Mac,
Linux).

Gameplay
And Yet It Moves is centered around the enhancement of players’ abilities in a 2D platformer. Its core
mechanism is the power to turn the world in 90 degrees intervals any time the user chooses to. This has
clear implications on the game environment: walls become floors, tunnels may suddenly be used as
downward slides and a stone resting on the ground may fall, becoming either a dangerous obstacle or
useful object for catapulting.
To successfully progress through a level, a player must apply the physical consequences of rotating the
world to the avatar, and to other moving objects, like stones, drops of water and branches, as well as to
living things, such as bats, monkeys and much more.
Our goal was to cater to players with a reasonably high game literacy, along with newcomers to our domain.
We carefully introduce our core mechanism, and slowly build up the challenges, so that one can improve
while playing. During our intense user testing sessions, we refined and polished that process, in order to
provide a satisfying gaming experience.
A great amount of effort was put into supporting the fresh and interesting gameplay, with many additionally
added special objects to interact with, and a large variety of puzzles distributed over 16 levels in 3
environments. It’s amazing how much there is to do when you’re able to turn the world around!

Artstyle
And Yet It Moves is notable, parallel to its polished, focused gameplay, for the unique artistic style that was
to inevitably arise. Our team lacked a specialized visual game artist, so we looked for a style we liked that
we would be able to produce. The roughness and analog feel of a world set in a paper collage provided just
what we wanted, without the necessity of 3D artists building it. Each object, plant or animal that the player
encounters is ripped out of a photo or movie image and brought to life using current realtime rendering
techniques. Every level was designed through a meticulous handmade process, including various back-
and foreground layers, making it more interesting to play through.
The same analog approach was also used for the acoustic design of And Yet It Moves. In addition to visual
finesse, the world is enriched with handmade sounds and music, all originating from our sound designer,
Christoph’s, voice.
If a player must spend a moment determining how to overcome an obstacle, the visual and acoustic beauty
offers a great deal to enjoy in the meantime.
We split up the levels into three visually and thematically distinct environments. The first few levels are set in
the winding corridors of a cave, beginning visually quietly so the player may focus on learning the
mechanisms of the game, increasingly coming to life as the player advances. Once the character is able to
escape, they find themselves in a lush forest, surrounded by canopying trees and mysterious plants and
animals, which may not be always be very welcoming.
Many challenges must be overcome within the beautiful homage to nature, until a snake bite casts the
character into a world, transformed with abstract challenges.
Without any further spoilers, we invite you to explore the visual, acoustic spectacle of gameplay for
yourself!

Online Capabilities
A great interest was shown in the high score tables of the prototype of And Yet It Moves, showing us that
even platformers can be racing games.
Therefore, we officially included the social community phenomena of Speed Runs, which accompany so
many other platform games, but which have always been carried out via YouTube, among others.
Each run through a level in And Yet It Moves will be recorded as a “Ghost” and can be submitted with its
time to the global online high scores. With the ability to download other user’s Ghosts, one is able to
compete against friends and strangers around the globe. The recorded Ghosts may be used to observe
how others play through a level, to show shortcuts to friends or to learn new tips and tricks for increasing
one’s skills.
Extra effort has been put into making the user interface as simple as possible so that the times and Ghosts
one wants to compete with can be found most easily.A player can filter the high scores to see the best
times, the times one is most likely to beat or simply the times of a specific user or location. Our vast
assortment of high scores, therefore, allows a way for players to define their own competitions, not only
trying to top those of others skillful enough to compete for the highest places.

Where is it coming from
And Yet It Moves was conceived as a game concept for a computer science course, held by the
Department for Design and Assessment of Technology at the Vienna University of Technology. Thanks to
the wisdom of our supervisors to constrict us to a 2D engine, we focused on giving a player more control
and abilities within a 2D platformer.
The prototype for And Yet It Moves was a 2007 Independent Games Festival Student Showcase Winner and
a 2007 EUROPRIX Top Talent Award Nominee.
It was additionally included in the 2007 Independent Games Showcase at E3, is an IndieCade Finalist and
was shown at IndieCade @ Open Satellite 2008. Our prototype has also made its way into the Australian
Center for Moving Images in Melbourne, where it was shown in the 2007 Best of Independent Games
Festival exhibition.
Due to the aforementioned interest in the prototype, we decided to build a full version of the game. We
strongly believe that we have created a noteworthy successor.

Team
We are a small team of four former Computer Science students from the Vienna University of Technology.
Our small size has kept us very eclectic in our work. In the true independent spirit, each of us has always
made a contribution in each area of the development of And Yet It Moves. It is important for us to
emphasize that the game design of And Yet It Moves was a team effort, which all four of us were heavily
involved in. Nonetheless, a title has been assigned to each individual, related to the main area of interest, in
order to define and clarify the responsibilities during the time of development.

And Yet It Moves will be available for download as of today, August 6th, 2010 from:

http://www.andyetitmoves.net/index.php?content=buy

To learn more about And Yet It Moves, visit the official website at:
www.andyetitmoves.net/

Official video trailer :

About Broken Rules
Broken Rules is an independent games studio based in Vienna, Austria, founded by
students of the Department for Design and Assessment of Technology at the Vienna
University of Technology. The company’s first title, And Yet It Moves, is a downloadable
PC title that was conceived as a game concept for the school program. The title went on
to win awards in game design competitions across Europe and garner industry-wide
recognition, which led the team to expand the property to the Nintendo Wii as a WiiWare
downloadable offering. Broken Rules aims to expand the audience for And Yet It Moves
while working on new game concepts for the PC and console platforms. To learn more
about Broken Rules, visit http://brokenrul.es/.

QuantZ is now ready and on sale on our website!!!
www.gamerizon.com/games/QuantZ

QuantZ for Linux is on sale and we decided to sell it for $6.50 till the end of January.

We really would like to thank you for all your help, your support, your comments regarding the Linux Version of QuantZ. This helped us to develop the (almost?) perfect game for Linux.

We fixed most of the bugs, added a tutorial mode, developed some cool stuff like Christmas QuantZ (you will see that next december.
Developing games for Linux is really important to us. Most of our team members are Linux users, lovers and defenders.

Another important point is WE TRUST THE LINUX COMMUNITY! That is why QuantZ for Linux is totally DRM free. This will allow you to install QuantZ on all your computers. Thank for not distributing.

Gamerizon is a small Indie game studio. Our only way to promote our game is to talk directly with the gamers (via the forums or reddit) and hope for some website to see us and talk about our games. We really need you to help us increasing QuantZ’s notoriety.

So please, Talk about QuantZ everywhere you can, post on forums, talk with reviewers that can write an article about QuantZ. If you know (or you are) a reviewer who wants to test QuantZ, ask him to write me (klazla@gamerizon.com) and i’ll be glad to give him all the art asset, screenshot, video he might need.

Thanks for everything guys

With Love

The gamerizon team”

QUANTZ. ORGANIC, SIMPLE YET ADDICTIVE
Are you ready for the most epic journey of your life? Are you prepared enough to experiment a new way to play in a videogame?
QuantZ invites you to explore a fascinating universe. In this cosmic Puzzle-Action game, the gameplay is simple yet addictive; you have the power to control a cube with your mouse and launch marbles onto it. Create explosions of color, chain reactions and win special rewards.
Explore an immersive universe and become the QuantZ Oracle! With 24 unique and beautiful worlds to go through, 100 Puzzles to complete and an innovative game physics, QuantZ will blow your mind!

WHAT TO DO IN QUANTZ?
The game consists of moving around a cube in order to land colored marbles in strategic places to create chain reactions. QuantZ offers more than 50 hours of unique game play and three different game modes:

- The Strategy mode, which includes 12 levels to explore
- The Action mode, where reactions prevail over reflection
- The Puzzle mode, which offers more than a hundred riddles to solve

A WORD FROM THE STUDIO
“With QuantZ, we wanted to create a totally immersive experience that was gamer friendly, but with a real depth of play. We paid special attention to the game play, the physics, and the visual and audio effects to create a game that exceeded our expectations. We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the different game modes in order to offer a variety of game play and a game life unmatched for a casual game. We are thrilled to finally make it available to fans and are convinced that the game will please a very broad and varied audience.”
-DOMINIQUE BELANGER, GAMERIZON

I’ve tried QuantZ GNU/Linux Beta and it’s an excellent game with several play modes which I urge you to try, even if you don’t like puzzle games
You might be surprised.

After seeing my blog, Koen the only developer and founder of the gaming company Koonsolo contacted me and was kind enough to give his game Mystic Mine for a review.
I was happy to learn that Mystic Mines was developed on GNU/Linux (Kubuntu) using many FOSS.

Mystic Mine is a simple yet challenging and a very fun game for the whole family.
You play by switching the rails in front of your mine cart that is always on the move.
It is done by using only one key thus friendly to people with limited mobility and it supports “local multiplayer” games with up to 6 players on one keyboard.

The levels of the game are mine rails with impossible angles and structure, something like Escher paintings, which in my opinion is very original and beautiful.

Each level has it’s own “goals” that can include : picking up coins, delivering diamonds, holding the Lamp as much time as you can, avoiding dynamites, achieving specific amount of points using any way you can and many more…
Upon finishing a level you get a rank (beginner, pro, expert etc..) based on how many points you managed to achieve on that level, the next level will adopt to your rank.
If you fail finishing a level the game difficulty will adept to your skills and next time when you restart the level the meeting goals will be lower making the level easier.
This sounds very good and it’s indeed an excellent system for most types of missions.

This system however can be sometimes very annoying, for example…
In a mission when you must hold the lamp for 1:30 minutes (of the total 2 minutes of the level), if you managed to hold the lamp for 30 seconds and you have 40 more seconds left, then there is no way for you to achieve the goal of the level, yet you must continue playing so your rank at the end of the level may be determined.
There is no option to restart the level when you realize you cannot finish it at this try.
A patch to the game that makes it possible to restart the level on the same difficulty or choose a bit lower difficulty without waiting for the level to end could be very nice to have.
On most other missions that I’ve met (picking up coins, delivering diamonds …) this is not a problem as you still have a chance to succeed finishing the level up to the last second.

Mystic Mines supports “local multiplayer”, up to 6 people can play the game on one keyboard (each of them use only one key), the problem is to gather 6 people around one keyboard (this can be a bit “space” problematic ), I didn’t try it but I’m sure that this is much more fun then playing with several bots which is also great.
The problem is that this game doesn’t support multiplayer over network – you cannot host or connect to online games like in “regular” multiplayer games – this is a big miss in my opinion.

After finishing a level you can always go back and redo the same level again and try to beat your record on that level.
In the “Adventure” mode you have fixed levels, after finishing a “series” of levels you get a new type of missions and “collectibles”.
You can also play in “Quick Play” mode in which you get random levels of random goals, you can also skip levels in this mode.

Overall this is an excellent and refreshing game with a very nice graphics and polished gameplay.
I highly advice you to try the demo for several missions and see for yourselves.